I’ve always enjoyed WoW most when I didn’t feel forced into things, and when I’ve been given the freedom to make my own enjoyment: usually in the form of herbing/mining while watching movies, with some wPvP sprinkled on top; and maybe 20% tanking dungeons and doing BG/arena pugs. Just vibing with a bit of spontaneity. That freedom feels lacking atm.
I’ve lost interest over the years, but those simple things have always kept me coming back to level 3-4 toons and keep up with the story. And though I’ve felt that the game isn’t quite worth the cost for the past 8 years, the WoW Token meant that I could just carry on vibing—without ever having to drop a cent on xpacs or subs—it was effectively F2P, so the question of “is the game worth the money?” was a non-factor.
Well, the token is fairly steep now, and every farming method I’ve tried in the past 7 days has felt disgusting—so, now that question is a factor. Yeah, token declines and farming booms during the first weeks of an xpac, but what I’m seeing now in terms of system design, looks rather bad. Bots appear to be rampant, farming and the economy looks scuffed, and they’ve jacked the xpac base cost up by 50% in aud (is it 25% in usd?). They also did something that ruined disengage for me in PvP, I don’t know what, and self-cast key has been trolling people’s macros for years unfixed. So now I’m faced with the decision of actually paying to play—to take the risk that I’ll quit within the first few weeks because there’s no longer a place for me in this increasingly fast-pased AoE-fest of an “MMO” that thinks it’s a Hack and Slash—with next to none of the appeal of a good HnS. Does the game even know what it wants to be anymore? Are they trying to please certain groups of players too hard, and then unintentionally crapping on others?
This isn’t a complaint; I’m sharing my perspective, and I’m genuinely trying to figure out how—or if—I fit into this game now that it feels so incredibly different.
What I’ve always done, is make my own enjoyment in the game—with a mixture of farming & PvP—until flying gets added, and then unsub till the next xpac. Flying has completely ruined previous xpacs for me; it makes the overworld feel like a single-player game with really good AI NPCs(players). Pathfinder wasn’t ideal, but at least I got a good few months of fun and I was okay with that compromise: I had fun at launch, farmed tokens, tanked pugs, did wPvP, and then quit when flying killed it all… and re-sub a month before the next xpac, to prep and get up to speed for more of the same.
So I just got back after 3 years, and I’m kinda regretting it. All I’m seeing is crazy token prices, horrible farming experience, and while the new flying mechanic is interesting, it sounds like we get to use it at launch in the next xpac. On top of that, people can pay for a 3-day head start to exploit the economy?
I had an amazing time with Ashran(WoD); I practically lived in there farming auction parts for the entire expansion—had more fun there than MoP, Legion and SL combined, and flying at launch would not have impacted me at all, but it might have ruined any overworld treasure jump puzzles. Had a blast with gathering+wPvP(BfA), too. Legion ruined Ashran for me, and flying—BfA.
I’ve only been back for 5 days, so maybe I’ve overlooked some news or activities. Any ideas, or just play a different game?
If they made some kind of survival BG, similar to this: https://i.imgur.com/qmmfecd.jpeg, and they made it well,then I’d probably live in there like I did in Ashran. So many zones (like Drustvar) already work perfectly. I guess it’d be similar to AV, but more of a semi-farmable mix of PvE/PvP/Arena where you ascend to the arena at the peak.
Make it casual and highly unpredictable for good replay value; have a chance for rare nodes/drops to appear (like the universal language repository, or black lotus—and have gathering/skinning give stacks of certain buffs while desperately trying to group up and not to die during phase 1.) I’m sure they could come up with a really satisfying design, just recycling existing zones, and doing it in a way that doesn’t punish people for not participating. Seeing as the game feels less like an MMO and more like a HnS for me nowadays, I think something like this would capture the majority of what casual farmers/PvPers value—with a large zone that has no flying.